RE: Slave labor camps in the united states
Don't trots support democratic centralism?
I've literally read nothing the man ever wrote, but I have had conversations with a few of them and they always tell me that they are Leninists. Maybe, I'm wrong,all the information I've gotten is second hand.
Anyway, Bookchin postulated something similar, with his concept of the libertarian municipality. What Bookchin thought, was that we need to forget about the nation arena(at least for now) and focus on gaining power in our local municipalities. Like winning local elections and all that, ironically, this is what eventually lead to his split with anarchism. The anarchists of his day, wouldn't accept that participation is the political bodies is necessary. So he quit the ideology entirely.
What bookchin thinks we should do, is not try and fight the state, or capitalism, or whatever else, but instead create parallel systems inside of the old system, in order to eventually replace the old system with.
He goes so far as to postulate creating a new political system, based on local assemblies, in order to redirect political power away from the nation state.
I don't know if that is pragmatic though. That's my growing issue with bookchin, he's utopian, he admits it. That's not what we need right now. Utopian dreams are nice, but if we can't implement a model, what's even the point?
The part of bookchin, which is really important, is that we need to look to the future and not the past, in order to formulate what to do.
So what is being born right now, in terms of leftism?
Well, Bolivia seems to be doing quite well. Colombia, even though Gustavo Petro lost, seems to be moving to the left as well.
Right, and these people are very pragmatic, but also legitimate(in my view anyway) in their socialism.
We need a pragmatic, authentic, rational, materialistic left. Sanders is a fucking sell out, so we can't look to him or the DSA. We must look to ourselves to provide an answer to this.
There is no vanguard, there is no revolution, there is only us, for better, or for worse.
Trots abandoned and denounced DemCen (Democratic Centralism) as soon Trotsky was voted to be kicked out of the Central Committee. Ever since then, with the multiplicity of Trots, it's hard to tell but most denounce Democratic Centralism. Also yah might hear some Trots say they're Leninists, but they never read the heavy-handed and denouncing letters between Trotsky and Lenin whenever they talked about each other - even post-1917 it just got heavier in volume, not lighter.
I think Bookchin's Libertarian Municipality ideology stems very much from Red Bases and Dual Power while of course having heavy influences from the Anarchist tradition. Is there a need to update Dual Power? Well for the Third World (and Second World?) with their Red Bases and Protracted People's War, they got it situated alright there (Naxalite India, Maoist Filipinos, FARC Columbia and so on and so on). But for the First World (and Second World?), there's a need to commit to actual theory-crafting and find our Dual Power for our day, from either Marxist or Anarchist tradition. And yes, as we question ourselves do we ever more understand the World around us. And as we question the World around us, do we ever more understand ourselves.
Regardless, we should give Critical Support to Third World movements that do go Leftist, like the Venezuelan Government, and others. They know their situation, they can obviously do better, but we have no way to tell if there is a better path for them with how their material conditions are set up. But we shall stand with them where we agree and struggle with them where we disagree. They after all are facing the brunt-end of Imperialism, let all of us leftists overcome that principal contradiction, and then we can talk about where they should go from there.